Mennonite Sorghum

A Mennonite heirloom from Missouri. The tall
canes are juiced and boiled to make a very
sweet, light, sorghum syrup, excellent on pancakes.
This variety gives good yields and also
produces lots of grain.

Sorghum does very well in my desert poor alkaline soil as Ive been growing the "birdseed" variety here for years. I wanted to try another type and this packet I got was a success. I think every seed I planted out of the packet, still some to go, have been viable so far. I planted them in very poor soil that is subject to neglect and this survived when weeds dried up. If you want a photo of my Mennonite sorghum plants, I can take one for you.
I am about to buy my second seed packet from Rare Seeds, the first one was fine

Sorghum grew to about 9 feet. Very large seed heads. Planted it at the outside of my chicken pen wire fence. Walk out every morning to let the chickens out and noticed that the 9 foot stalks were moving. Stood back and noticed that Rats and many field mice were in there STRIPPING the seed heads bare. Did eventually catch all the critters and then did have some sorghum left for ME ! . Cut, crushed and boiled the stalks and made a dark flavorful syrup. Worth growing again,and again.

It grows quickly and produces a lot of grain. I kept the grain for the next years seed and fed the stalks to my cows who loved them. There were a great deal of grasshoppers that were attracted to the leaves of the plants but the plants seemed to handle them very well and that gave me plenty of fat grasshoppers for fish bait.